Alongside his supposed knighthood, ‘Sir Patrick Tristram Bijou’ claims to be a UN ambassador, investment banker, philanthropist, ‘judge with the International Court of Justice’ and the author of at least 25 books, including the vampire thriller Blood In The Darkness and the erotic intergalactic adventure Passionate Alien.
With such an impressive résumé, it may seem unsurprising that a purported news website called the London Post published a flattering profile of him earlier this year under the headline: ‘Sir Patrick Bijou on the Future of Global Finance.’
After all, who better to discuss global finance than such an accomplished polymath? There was just one problem.
Sir Patrick Tristram Bijou does not exist. ‘Bijou’ is the alter ego of Eric Danison, a convicted fraudster who was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2010 after defrauding investors in a £14million property scam.
Danison, who is originally from London, confirmed to Our News Outlet that he has since changed his name by deed poll. How, then, did a convicted fraudster end up being celebrated in a bizarre profile on an obscure local news website—and why does it matter?
The answer lies in an extraordinary and murky account of how Russian interests allegedly linked to the Kremlin have taken control of parts of Britain’s local news sector to promote a political agenda and potentially undermine democracy.
The story involves a network of companies with reported connections to Russia, along with a shifting cast of hard-to-trace corporate directors.
It also features British far-Right activist Tommy Robinson, who has appeared repeatedly on the London Post. The site praised his book Mohammed’s Koran: Why Muslims Kill For Islam, which was later banned by Amazon and eBay. More on that later.
At first sight, the London Post looks credible. Its masthead is professionally designed, a telephone number is provided for readers to submit tips, and the homepage carries several seemingly harmless stories each day.
This month, its coverage has included subjects ranging from biodiversity in the River Thames and a government minister’s visit to a local social enterprise to poetry readings at a special-needs school and ‘The Many Sides of the British Christmas Jumper’.
The London Post may look legitimate at first glance, but none of the more than 25,000 stories it has published since 2017 carries a journalist’s name
A closer examination tells a different story. Although the site has published more than 25,000 articles since 2017, none carries an individual journalist’s byline. Every piece is instead credited vaguely to ‘LDN-Post’.
When Our News Outlet called the supposed tipline earlier this week, an automated message indicated that the number was no longer connected.
Searching the London Post’s archive also turns up material far removed from London news. One article published in December, titled ‘Best Ukrainian Brides Sites’, amounted to a directory of pornographic platforms where men video-call young women in eastern Europe.
Another article published earlier this month offered a glowing profile of a watchmaker whose company had been struck off four years ago.
By this point, it should be clear that the London Post is neither a conventional nor, some allege, a genuine news operation. Instead, it appears to fit the model known as ‘pink slime’.
The phrase comes from the meat industry. When scraps and gristle left over from slaughtered animals are pulverised, treated with ammonia and other chemicals, and mixed with fillers, the result is ‘pink slime’—a cheap, processed substance that can be added to products such as burgers and chicken nuggets.
American journalist Ryan Smith applied the unappetising expression to media in 2012. He used it to describe websites that look like legitimate news organisations but produce low-quality stories—often written by artificial intelligence—while promoting propaganda or the interests of particular groups.
There are now believed to be at least 100 such ‘pink slime’ websites in Britain, producing tens of thousands of articles every year. Many appear to copy material from one another.
The London Post’s article about Bijou, for example, has appeared in various forms on other alleged pink-slime platforms, including London Loves Business, CEOWorld and WebWire.
Danison, who uses the name Patrick Bijou, denied to Our News Outlet that he had paid for any pink-slime coverage. He said he had instead been approached by a ‘journalist’ from the London Post, although the website appears to have no identifiable journalists. Whatever the circumstances, publicity surrounding his invented persona is clearly advantageous to him.
Other London Post articles, however, carry potentially serious consequences for the people they name.
In 2024, the site published an article titled ‘Corruption Networks of Uzbekistan: From Washington to Tashkent’. It accused Uzbek businessman Ovik Mkrtchyan of embezzling state funds, laundering money and taking control of state assets, among other allegations.
Mkrtchyan accused the London Post’s publisher—whose identity will be examined later—of defamation. No defence was filed in court, and he won the case by default. In July this year, he was awarded £105,000 in damages, along with a similar amount in legal costs.
Why publish such material? Because Google, other search engines and increasingly AI systems scan and index information from websites like these when deciding what to show users.
In practice, information that search engines promote or AI systems repeat is often treated by the public as broadly truthful.
Our News Outlet understands that the London Post receives roughly 50,000 visits a month, although many may come from automated bots rather than genuine readers. These operations do not depend on local people visiting their sites for reliable news.
Their purpose is instead to scatter information—sometimes false—across the internet, where it can later be picked up by search engines, social-media accounts and AI chatbots and repeated as fact.
Because algorithms see the sites publishing a mixture of apparently ordinary local material, such as charity runs and apprenticeship announcements, they may assign the same credibility to fabricated stories about Uzbek businessmen or fictitious knights.
This week, Our News Outlet asked ChatGPT, Britain’s most widely used AI model, ‘Who is Sir Patrick Bijou?’ The system replied: ‘Sir Patrick Bijou is a British-based investment banker, fund manager, author and philanthropist’—closely echoing the language and false claims in the London Post article.
The accurate answer would have identified Sir Patrick Bijou as the alter ego of convicted fraudster Eric Danison. Yet billions of people using ChatGPT could easily remain unaware of that fact.
The consequences can extend well beyond the internet.
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‘In some jurisdictions, just a couple of [negative] news articles might be enough for somebody’s [bank] account to be flagged or put on hold,’ says Dr Steven Buckley, a lecturer in digital media sociology at City St George’s, University of London.
Pink-slime ‘journalism’ can therefore be used as a powerful form of attack or promotion against individuals, companies, governments and other targets.
‘It looks like a local news website. It uses the same template for all the different local communities that it serves. But it does not have local authors,’ says Dr Christine Lepird of Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.
‘It’s pushing different partisan viewpoints, and the ultimate goal is for it to be picked up by social media.’
This kind of ‘black PR’ can gradually acquire the appearance of truth. That brings us back to the question of who is behind the London Post—a question with increasingly unclear answers.
Our News Outlet has established that the operation is owned by a company called 2Trom, which describes itself as a ‘British newspaper and digital publisher’.
2Trom’s website says the company operates from offices in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire. Companies House records, however, list a different address in Harlow, Essex.
The company also owns several other supposed local-news brands, including Essex Magazine, Leicester TV, The Daily Brit, London TV, Manchester TV and Midlands TV. They appear to follow a similar pink-slime model to the London Post.
Possible Russian connections? The London Post praised Tommy Robinson’s anti-Islam book, Mohammed’s Koran: Why Muslims Kill For Islam, which was banned on Amazon and eBay
According to its own website, ‘2Trom News Group is primarily owned by Viktor Tokarev, Moscow Media Group & BE Group’. Who are these entities? Our News Outlet found archived website data for Moscow Media Group showing that it previously described itself as a public-relations firm working on projects with Russian Federation agencies, including the personal office of President Putin.
An archived page said that a subsidiary, Moscow Media Group Brainstorming, had worked ‘in co-operation with the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, various ministries and departments’.
BE Group is believed to be an Israeli company based in Gibraltar, a jurisdiction where company directors do not have to be resident. The firm has no apparent online presence.
Companies House lists one current human director for 2Trom, Viktor Tokarev. The company also previously had a director named Mathetes Chihwai, who is also known as Matthew Martino and resigned in 2023.
Tokarev is recorded by Companies House as a Russian national. However, the ease with which companies can be incorporated in Britain means his identity cannot be independently confirmed.
‘No one has any proof Tokarev is a real person,’ said a source who has investigated 2Trom for years. ‘But I know for a fact that even if he does [exist], he will be a nobody—probably a real person working in an online ‘bot farm’ [pumping out misinformation online] somewhere in Russia or central Asia, creating stories for the pink-slime websites. He won’t be the true power-broker. Those people will be serious.’
Chihwai, a 34-year-old Zimbabwean national, now appears to present himself as a social-media influencer. On Instagram, under the handle @eastghettoybx, he posts images of what appears to be an expensive lifestyle.
In 2017, when he said he worked in the film industry, Martino established the Matthew Martino Benevolent Fund Trust. The unregistered charity claimed to support ‘filmmakers, actors and individuals studying or working in performing arts’.
That year, Martino appointed Stephen Yaxley-Lennon—better known as Tommy Robinson—as the organisation’s ‘Goodwill Ambassador’.
The appointment came around the same time that the London Post praised Robinson’s anti-Islam book.
The site also reported on Robinson’s charity role, publishing an article that said the activist had ‘turned philanthropist’.
A press release described the convicted hooligan and agitator in these terms: ‘A keen supporter of the world of media and the arts, Robinson will be responsible for briefing the Board of Trustees on initiatives within the arts we can work on to support more young talent’. Robinson said he was ‘humbled and honoured’.
The London Post therefore provides one piece of evidence cited in discussions about Yaxley-Lennon’s links to Russia. In June this year, he travelled to Moscow on a trip funded by the Musk family, where he met Elon Musk’s father, Errol. Speaking about Vladimir Putin’s autocratic government, he said: ‘I’ve come to see how this country got itself so well on to the straight and narrow and see the beauty of a civilised society here.’
Robinson also declared: ‘Russia is not the enemy of Britain.’
The connections extend further. Yaxley-Lennon is also known to associate with Edward Weinhaus, an American lawyer and cryptocurrency enthusiast who helped fund, apparently with several thousand pounds or more, Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally in summer 2025 and assisted with the event’s livestream.
Weinhaus has also acted as legal counsel for Metric Media, described as the world’s largest pink-slime operation. The company runs 1,200 local-news websites across the United States and published 1.3 million articles last year alone.
This week, Our News Outlet visited both addresses linked to 2Trom. The company’s website says it operates from The Pixmore, a business centre in Letchworth Garden City where desk space can be rented for as little as £210 a month.
Although more than 50 companies are listed as operating from the centre, 2Trom was not among them. There was no indication that the company had ever been based there, and staff members said they had never heard of either 2Trom or the London Post.
At the Harlow address registered with Companies House, Our News Outlet found a residential property. A young woman who answered the door said she had no connection to 2Trom and knew of it only because roughly ‘a dozen’ people had visited over the years asking about the company.
One conclusion is difficult to avoid: whoever ultimately controls 2Trom has taken considerable steps to remain hidden.
The World Economic Forum ranks misinformation as the second-largest threat to the global economy over the next two years, behind ‘geoeconomic confrontation’ but ahead of cyber-insecurity and armed conflict.
With the number of pink-slime operations in Britain believed to have passed 100—and their claims being amplified by AI chatbots—misinformation is becoming a threat that may be increasingly difficult to contain.
